Dear President Trump,

I’m not sure I’m going to be able to cover all the good news that happened today at church in my allotted 2500 characters so there may be some spillover tomorrow. We’ll see. Today was Homecoming Sunday. It’s always a pretty big deal for us but this year our Pastor made it extra-special and did her best to channel the excitement and pageantry that traditional Black churches bring to their first Sundays. There were gold streamers and fancy gold framed images of beautiful doorways decorating the sanctuary signaling that things are different now, that our usual staid, uptight Whiteness is going to have to move over and make room for more exuberant expressions of faith and community. This was the first good news.

Next, I want to hold up a beautiful line from today’s contemporary reading, “Migratory God,” by poet Phuc Luu of Houston; “you wash off ties to nation and citizenship,” which is aspirational of course, but profoundly important (note: your spell check still doesn’t know the word “aspirational” — you need to fix that).

One of the most moving things that happened this morning was when a fairly disheveled man sitting up front started to interrupt the service and our Pastor told him she was going to get to the themes he was talking about in her sermon and asked him to hold on. Later, a few minutes into her sermon she said she realized he must have something he wanted to say and asked him to come forward. He did and with her standing next to him he sang two full verses of “Ode to Joy” a cappella (which your spellcheck also doesn’t recognize) with the congregation quietly filling in to support him. And then he sat down. And most of us wept. It was absolutely lovely and loving. She had no idea what he was going to say or do and she trusted him and herself and all of us to hold whatever happened gently and compassionately. It was a holy, holy moment.

I’ll tell you about doodle prayers and a special walker tomorrow.

May we all be safe enough to trust each other.
May we all be happy to be present with one another.
May we all see that our health is interdependent.
May our lives unfold and intersect through the love at our collective core.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson